


Development

by Para



Series: Heterodyne [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to Heterodyne!  In which Klaus and Agatha talk, Klaus realizes some obvious things, fails to correctly put together the hints toward others, and Agatha is still overwhelmed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't forget about Gil, he's just... sitting there observing quietly, like everyone else that isn't Klaus or Agatha (or Boris) is. No one wants to interrupt the Baron when he's acting weirdly intense and protective.
> 
> I make no promises on the speed of updates, but the next chapter will have Klaus meeting Adam and Lilith.
> 
> Edit: Okay, added/amended a bit so that the other characters don't vanish quite so thoroughly; credit goes to Linnypants for most of the suggestions that became edits. Also, there's a bit of a joke with the jägers now; see if you can spot it.

Merlot led them to a pleasantly decorated tea room which, upon examination, appeared to have a beetle-shaped floor plan. The next time Boris complained about the time needed to add Wulfenbach castles to everything, Klaus was going to remind him of this. He was absolutely reasonable by comparison.

Merlot ordered tea, and the girl (who still sounded overwhelmed) agreed to the jägers that weren’t present continuing to follow Klaus’s orders at least until additional Wulfenbach forces could arrive, since neither of them wanted the city to break into chaos. (The ones that were present revolved around her; two just behind her chair, eight more in pairs that formed a rough ring against the walls and nearby corners, and Jorgi by the door at the far end.) With that done Boris departed (with only minor frowning) to oversee reorganizing the present Wulfenbach forces and jägers in light of Beetle’s escape and calling in replacements for the jägers, and the rest of the room settled into a calming, thoughtful silence.

The jägers had glared Glassvitch away from the only chair within arm's reach of Agatha, although not claimed it for themselves, so Glassvitch and Merlot sat on a (beetle-patterned) sofa to one side, both tense. They were also both shooting Agatha quick glances, but very different ones; Glassvitch's were concerned, and Merlot's seemed to be some sort of warning. Agatha stared at where she'd folded her hands in her lap, oblivious to both. Gilgamesh sat on the other side (having moved a chair over for himself—the room was quite inconveniently shaped), eyebrows halfway pinched together in thought and eyes flicking between Agatha, Klaus, Glassvitch and Merlot. Klaus sat across from Agatha, and directed the soldier clanks in a fan behind himself and Gilgamesh. He doubted they'd have time to respond to any attack before the jägers finished it, but they needed to go somewhere.

The tea arrived, carried by two women who were both curtly dismissed by Merlot as soon as they finished serving it. They seemed glad enough to escape the eleven suspicious and threatening glares the jägers had been directing at them, and the room became quiet for the next few minutes.

Having been given the time to think, Klaus felt slightly more in control of himself. The storm of emotions hadn’t calmed much, but he believed he could at least resist acting on them immediately. That was important, since his present inclination was to simply take the girl up to the school, and sort out where she’d come from and what to do with her after she was _safe_.

He might do that anyway, of course, but for the moment she didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. It could cause problems if he did that without getting the jägers’ (which really meant the girl’s) agreement first, and ideally he should learn who to inform of her whereabouts once he did bring her to the school.

There could—there could be a whole Heterodyne _family_ , now that he thought of it. She had to have a parent that was a Heterodyne, and she hadn’t mentioned being orphaned. Perhaps even a grandparent, though it was rare for sparks to live that long. She could easily have siblings, a fiancé… if so, the man had best be able to stand up to a _very_ thorough investigation.

Now, how best to start? No one else was breaking the silence, which Klaus was grateful for. He’d needed the time to think. That he’d missed the girl’s presence implied a _family_ ….

Well, enough stalling. He set the teacup (still mostly full) down, and was immediately the center of everyone’s attention, with the exception of the girl. She was biting her lip, staring into her own tea as if she didn’t see it. That probably did not indicate thoughts she would do better for continuing. “Miss….” He couldn’t bring himself to call her Clay. Well, he _could_ , but he didn’t _want_ to. She didn’t seem like she’d be comfortable with the Heterodyne name yet, but Klaus supposed she would do better to get used to it in his presence than someone else’s. He wouldn’t use the confusion against her. “Heterodyne. Your name?”

She jumped, but at least didn’t spill the tea. Instead she set it down with exaggerated care as she answered. “Ah—Agatha, Herr Baron. Agatha—um. Clay. Or I _was_.”

Klaus attempted to smile reassuringly. He must have succeeded, because she gave him a smile that was only somewhat hesitant in return. (He didn’t make comparisons. He couldn’t remember Bill, Barry or Lucrezia ever smiling _hesitantly_ anyway.) “I suggest that you make an effort to become used to the name Heterodyne. It is quite clearly yours. Unless you have older siblings?” That would by no means _prevent_ her from using the name Heterodyne, but would give her the chance to refuse it. A very slim chance, Klaus suspected, if the jägers had anything to say about it.

“Ah—no, Herr Baron. I don’t have any siblings, as far as I know.” She bit her lip. “I’m, ah, realizing that might not mean very much right now.”

Klaus felt his eyebrows rise. “Is there a reason you might not know of siblings?”

“Well, I didn’t know about— _this_.” She gestured around the room. Klaus had to admit that discovering one was a Heterodyne might undermine some of one’s certainty about the rest of one’s life. Rather similar to discovering one had somehow befriended a pair of Heterodynes, that way. “And my parents—er, my adopted parents,” she corrected, “haven’t told me very much about my, uh, birth parents.” She frowned thoughtfully. “And I don’t remember them. My uncle and I traveled a lot before we started living with Adam and Lilith.”

That was disappointing news, but not the tragedy it could have been. Klaus tried not to look amused as the jägers collectively attempted to subtly edge closer to Agatha, with the exception of Jorgi, who slid over to lean against the door. Being jägers, their attempt at subtlety actually made it more obvious. “What does your uncle do?” Spark work, perhaps? It sounded as if he might well have known Agatha was a Heterodyne, if not been one himself.

“Oh.” Agatha looked sad and worried. “He’s missing. We haven’t seen him in—ah—eleven years, now. He was only supposed to be gone for a few months….” She bit her lip again as she trailed off.

“I see.” Klaus tried not to sigh. “That is a very old trail to follow, but I’d be happy to send some of my people to search for him, if you’d like.” And if she wouldn’t like, for that matter, but then he’d be more discreet about it. It sounded like this uncle might have some very useful information.

She lit up. “Really? Thank you! Oh, but I don’t want to put you to any extra trouble….”

“Agatha.” Klaus leaned forward, trying to catch her eyes. She looked a bit startled, but at least not afraid. “Bill and Barry—the Heterodyne boys—were the best friends I ever had. I wasn’t able to save them—” He pushed the bitterness of the thought aside with the efficiency of practice. “but you are their family and their heir, and I intend to help _you_.”

“Oh.” She looked startled. Klaus supposed a ruler one had never previously met declaring their intent to help one wasn’t quite an everyday experience for most people. “I—thank you, Herr Baron. I—I think I’m going to need a lot of help, really.”

Klaus smiled. In the corner of his eye, Merlot's expression became even more bitter before smoothing back out. All the more reason to get the girl away from this school and into his as soon as possible. “You will. That you recognize you will is a good sign.” He could bring up the school; it would be the best way for her to quickly learn what she still needed to, as well as being a more welcoming alternative than this seemed to be. But the jägers might still object to anything that wasn’t getting her to Mechanicsburg immediately; best to mention that first in as private a setting as possible.

“Thank you,” Agatha said.

There was a pause before Klaus settled on another topic. “You are a student here?”

“I—well, yes. Mostly.”

Klaus raised an eyebrow. “Mostly?”

Agatha dropped her head and seemed to curl in on herself. One of the jägers standing behind her chair moved halfway as if she was going to rest a hand on the girl's shoulder, and then dropped it back to her side, looking unsure. “I—I can’t think very well, every time I feel like everything makes sense I get these _headaches_ and I can’t think and—um.” Thankfully, she broke off before she could truly begin either ranting or sobbing. “Well, I attend classes, but I’m not allowed to take any tests. I, ah, passed out the first time I tried….”

That could be a problem. Mechanicsburg would welcome back a Heterodyne, but Klaus wasn’t sure how they’d respond to a Heterodyne that wasn’t a spark. He _was_ sure how the other great houses would respond, and it wouldn’t be good for Agatha. “And you’ve tried medicine?”

“Mostly teas.” Agatha uncurled a little, enough to watch Klaus from under her lashes, as if she wanted to see his reaction but didn’t quite dare let him know that. “They helped a little, but then I was sleepy instead so I was always late.”

“I see. You might try Heterodyning, too. I don’t know that it will help, but it shouldn’t hurt.” If the headaches really _were_ the problem, perhaps they could be cured. If not, having Sun look at her couldn’t do any harm; with luck, he’d be able to pinpoint the issue, and if there wasn’t a cure for it, invent one. “But I think our first priority should be to take you to the doctor. Fortunately,” Klaus did _not_ smile at the jägers, “the best hospital in Europa is also in Mechanicsburg.”

“Oh.” Agatha uncurled a bit more. “I… hadn’t thought of that. They’re just headaches, really….”

“Not if they prevent you from working.” Klaus had to resist the urge to question her for more details on the headaches; she obviously didn’t like the subject, and he was trying to reassure her. He could always question her later, or get the information from Sun.

The door opened an inch, and was immediately the focus of every jäger in the room as Jorgi sniffed, then stepped aside. Klaus turned in time to see Boris open the door wide enough to step in, and fix the jägers with an unimpressed look as he closed the door firmly behind himself. He turned to Klaus. “The city has been secured. The Tyrant was located in an old basement laboratory, and is now being transported to—”

“Oh!” Agatha jumped up from her chair, taking a step toward Boris and the door before stopping and turning to Klaus. “Please, Herr Baron, don’t hurt him! We need him!”

Damn Beetle. Klaus sighed. This was the last thing he needed right now—hah. As if this hadn’t been the _reason_ he came here in the first place. Well, all he could do now was deal with it. He tried to sound as gentle as he could. “Miss Heterodyne, I assure you I do not _want_ to harm him. But I must know why he hid a hive engine from me—in the middle of a city full of innocent civilians—before I can determine what I _must_ do. Do you understand?”

“I—” She bit her lip, looking torn, then retreated to her seat. She was obviously unhappy, but at least Klaus couldn’t see any signs of rebellion or distrust. “I don’t _like_ it, but I do.” She glared down at her tea, hands fisting in her skirt. “I don’t know why he would keep a hive engine! It’s so stupid!”

“That,” Klaus said, “I agree with.” He turned away from her startled look back to Boris. “You were saying?”

Boris was saying that the takeover of the city was complete, Beetle unconscious from C-gas and on the way to imprisonment on one of Castle Wulfenbach’s auxiliary prison ships, and no pockets of rebellion were yet evident. Quite the smoothest takeover Klaus had had in years, if he ignored the discovery of a _Heterodyne_ in the midst of it all. Not that she’d been especially involved—if this was any indication, she could well be the _least_ chaotic Heterodyne in history. What an odd thought.

There would be more work to do, of course; there always was. The first days after a takeover were critical to its stability, even if Klaus had in practical terms taken over this particular city years ago. The populace had for the most part not thought of it that way, and that was what mattered to their potential to rebel.

…Klaus honestly didn’t care at the moment. It was one city. They weren’t currently rebelling, and didn’t have the capacity to cause real trouble; things would work themselves out even if he didn’t bother with politics today. He waited through Boris’s explanation only because he knew he ought to, and Boris would likely find some way to trap him into listening to a much more detailed and longer report later if he didn’t now. “Thank you, Boris. Please inform me if any sign of rebellion becomes evident.”

“Herr Baron—”

“Boris.”

Boris sighed. “Very good, Herr Baron.” He left, without even giving the jägers another irritated look. Most likely because none of them had paid him a bit of attention beyond making sure he didn’t get too close to the Heterodyne. Jorgi settled back against the door.

Klaus turned back to Agatha. “Miss Heterodyne. Perhaps we should go speak to… Adam and Lilith, I believe you said?”

“Oh. Yes.” Agatha looked relieved, for possibly the first time since he’d seen her. “Yes, they’ll want to know about… all this. I’d like to talk to them.”

Good. Klaus hadn’t been _especially_ worried that Agatha’s family might be mistreating her, there was no indication that they did, but it was always a possibility. The more Agatha talked about them however, the less likely it seemed. Most likely her insecurity came entirely from the impact of the headaches, Merlot, and anyone else of his ilk in the school. It would still make things difficult for her, and being the Heterodyne never would have been easy to start with, but a supportive family would help.

Klaus was more concerned by how Agatha seemed to never think things through. She recognized and agreed to good suggestions, but never made suggestions herself, as if she never bothered to think about what to do and relied on others to tell her. She consistently seemed surprised by suggestions, too, so it wasn’t that she was simply keeping quiet in the presence of a political superior. Perhaps, if thinking hard triggered headaches, she’d simply gotten out of the habit of it. If so it was a habit she would need to change, and quickly.

But not now. For now Klaus was able to guide her, and she was under enough stress without adding that criticism. It was also possible that she was more thoughtful when not so stressed; it would be best for Klaus to observe her when she was calmer before bringing the topic up. Fortunately, her parents seemed likely to help with that.

Klaus stood. Merlot and Glassvitch jumped to their feet; Gilgamesh and Agatha followed a little more slowly, Agatha brushing her skirts off. Nothing had gotten on them, so Klaus guessed it was a nervous habit. He turned to Merlot. “Doctor Merlot. Is there anything you will require to run the university in the immediate future?”

Merlot blinked, a stunned expression overcoming the small scowl that had been on his face. “Er—no, Herr Baron.” He cleared his throat. “I would need to look over the reports from each department to be sure, but I do not believe we require anything at the present time.”

“Very well then, I leave you in charge.” Hopefully the taste of power would either appease Merlot, or discourage him from wanting it. And if Beetle could not be saved, there was always the chance that Merlot would adapt well enough to be put permanently in charge of the University, small though it seemed. “If you do require anything, send word and I will see that it is provided. Doctor Glassvitch,” he turned to the other man, who had continued shooting Agatha concerned and thoughtful glances throughout the conversation. He would certainly need to get Glassvitch’s report on Agatha, but not when the girl was present. “Thank you for your time. I hope we have not greatly disrupted your day.” He even managed to say it with a straight face. Politics was worse than acting, really.

Glassvitch bowed politely, with an equally serious expression. “Not at all, Herr Baron. It’s been an honor to meet you.”

They left Merlot and Glassvitch at the University, Merlot stalking off presumably to begin searching Beetle’s notes, hopefully for information on how to run the place, and Glassvitch looking thoughtful as he waved to Agatha. Agatha waved back from inside her circle of jägers. It was a shame Klaus would likely have a difficult time getting Glassvitch away from his job at the University; bringing someone else Agatha seemed to trust onto the Castle with her would have been useful. But Klaus had enough researchers already, and couldn’t offer the freedom to experiment or the respect that Glassvitch likely had.

So Klaus would need to convince her parents to follow her. That shouldn’t be too difficult; most parents would, and he could find jobs on the Castle for them, whatever it was they did. So long as they weren’t violently opposed to constructs—and Agatha’s behavior toward the jägers, while nervous, didn’t seem to indicate any great prejudice—it should work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus and Gil briefly engage in father/son bonding via teasing the nearest jäger, Agatha realizes something, and Adam and Lilith finally make their appearance. Nobody dies!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous chapter has been edited; the dialogue is the same, but the narration has changed so that the other characters don't vanish quite so thoroughly (and the tea doesn't appear out of the thin air of plot). You shouldn't lose anything if you don't reread it, but if you do want to there's now a bit of a joke with the jägers; see if you can spot it. Credit to [Linnypants](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnypants/pseuds/Linnypants) for making the suggestions that inspired most of the edits.
> 
> End note is just rambling about a headcanon which isn't actually relevant to the story.

Agatha led them toward her home and parents, now oblivious to the jägers as she chewed on her lip, apparently thinking very hard. Klaus wished he knew what about, though there probably weren't very many options. The morning lecture she was likely missing would take a distant second place to discovering she was a Heterodyne in most people’s minds.

The jägers surrounded her, of course, and the jägers they passed along the way inevitably stopped and turned to stare until she was out of sight. Most of them were simply patrolling, fortunately; in the few cases where one had been in the middle of speaking to someone foolish enough to break the lockdown, most joined the jägers in staring. The sole exception met Klaus's glare and froze again.

Slightly more unusual was the way certain jägers traded places. Most of the jägers that stared at Agatha only stared; a few—one or two each from entirely disparate units—jumped or ran over to the unit that had attached itself to Agatha, tapped a jäger from that unit on the shoulder, and then fell in as the tapped jäger drifted off to take up the patrol the other one had been assigned. Only twice did a jäger join without another leaving, and all the ones that joined seemed to be among the more monstrous—more and bigger horns, teeth, and claws, greater changes in muscle and skeletal structure, wider grins (which were flashed at any human who looked in the Heterodyne’s direction). After a few minutes of watching the exchanges Klaus sped up until he was walking beside Jorgi, at the back of the cluster of jägers. Jorgi of course had noticed him, and was watching from the sides of his eyes with an expression that wasn’t quite suspicious.

Klaus wasn’t worried that Agatha would hear them, lost in her own head as she was (though he was slightly concerned she might end up wandering in the wrong direction instead of to her home). He kept his voice low anyway. “Is the entire unit going to switch out?”

“Yah, mebbe, if ve run into de right vuns,” Jorgi said.

“Including you?”

“Hrmm.” Jorgi scratched at the side of his head as he thought. “Hy tink, probably not, bot mebbe.”

Klaus couldn’t tell if Jorgi was intentionally avoiding answering what he actually wanted to know, or genuinely oblivious to it. It was often a question with jägers. “I wouldn’t think any jäger would be willing to trade _out_ of this unit now.”

“Ho, yah.” Jorgi grinned at him as they rounded a corner. “Dey dun vant to. But iz important.”

“And why is it important?” It was almost certainly on purpose. Klaus preferred to keep Jorgi’s unit nearby because he was one of the more intelligent jägers; he should have figured out what Klaus was getting at by now.

If he hadn’t, he showed no surprise. Instead he nodded toward the group in front of them. “De new vuns is older. Bigger, faster, stronger, _better_. Normally ve keep dem in different units so iz even.”

“But now you have a Heterodyne who likely can’t fight at all,” Klaus said. Jorgi nodded. “Why not smarter?”

Jorgi’s shoulders drooped, and if Klaus ever described this conversation in Jorgi’s presence he’d have to first look up an obscure synonym for _pouted_. Jorgi sounded like he couldn’t decide whether to whine or not. “Dot vun iz vhy Hy em schtill here.”

“I see. I believe you’re a good choice for that,” Klaus said blandly.

Jorgi glared at him. Gilgamesh stifled a snicker behind them, and Jorgi turned to glare at him as well. “Iz not fonny.”

“Of course not,” Gilgamesh said, perfectly innocent.

“Compliments rarely are,” Klaus said.

“Hy vill not miss vorkink for _either_ ov hyu,” Jorgi complained.

If he was going to make any more complaints, they were cut off when Agatha abruptly stopped still in the middle of the street, straightening up like she’d been hit by something. Everyone else came to a stop a quarter step later, jägers tense and scanning the area, Klaus signaling the soldier clanks still. “Miss Heterodyne?”

She turned around, and it took a second for him to interpret her expression; a blend of shock, disbelief, and anger. She met his eyes without hesitating for the first time. “Herr Baron—you knew—can I ask you what the Heterodyne Boys looked like? And… and Lucrezia? And Punch and Judy?”

Klaus felt his eyebrows rising. “I’m sure the novels describe them—”

“But you knew them. Are the novels accurate?”

Klaus hadn’t ever really considered that before. He’d never paid much attention to the descriptions in the books, except to laugh at them; he’d already known what everyone looked like. “Idealized, but not wrong,” he decided.

Her hand went to her throat, clutching like she expected something to be there. She blinked, then spun as suddenly as she’d stopped, shoved past a startled jäger, and took off running down the street.

Klaus signaled the soldier clanks; the jägers caught up to surround Agatha again in a few steps, now tenser and closer together. He and Gilgamesh followed.

Klaus had had a better idea what was happening when he first heard her heterodyning in Beetle’s lab. “Gilgamesh, analyze,” he snapped as they ran.

“You cannot possibly have set this up as a test!”

“Certainly not, life tests us all. Now analyze!” She’d shown no signs before of the sort of strength it would take to shove aside even a startled jäger, although she was a Heterodyne, so perhaps the jäger had allowed himself to be pushed. Her behavior was less explainable; clearly she’d realized something to do with the Heterodyne Boys, but what? They were much too recognizable for her to have met them without Klaus hearing rumors of them being spotted, and they certainly couldn’t have spent two decades sneaking around Europa _without_ being seen. The novels might decide that Barry had secretly been a Smoke Knight all along, but reality would not follow. Neither of the Boys could resist adventure, and Lucrezia couldn’t resist attention; if they were alive and in Europa, Klaus would know about it.

Gilgamesh didn’t respond immediately, which Klaus would have been disappointed by if he weren’t equally stumped. “She’s seen some of them—perhaps all five, somewhere, and wasn’t told who they were,” Gilgamesh said eventually. “Probably by her parents, since we’re going the same way.”

“A quarter of the city is this way,” Klaus said. “Don’t make assumptions.”

But the street Agatha eventually turned onto—panting, sweating, and without having slowed her headlong sprint in the least—contained a large building with the words _Clay Mechanical_ painted in neat block letters above huge wooden doors. Everyone else slowed as they approached the building; Agatha veered to a smaller side door, and threw it open. It sounded like she would have been yelling outright, but she was crying as she ran in. “Adam! Adam why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

Three of the jägers got in the door and out of the way before Klaus shouldered his own way in and stopped in his tracks.

“Hoy, moof eet!” a jäger snapped from behind, and pushed Klaus.

He stepped to the side, still staring. “ _Punch?_ ”

If the construct Agatha was angrily clinging to wasn’t Punch, someone had gone to truly extraordinary lengths to find out exactly what he looked like and create a perfect copy of him. He was standing by a tractor, one grease-covered arm already wrapped around Agatha, and looked up, just as stunned as Klaus felt.

Which was entirely unfair. _Klaus_ hadn’t spent the last twenty years in hiding!

The soldier clanks stayed outside, unable to fit through the door. The jägers had clustered just inside it, apparently as surprised as everyone else. Gilgamesh was looking between Klaus and Punch, realization starting to dawn.

Agatha seemed to be the only one able to speak at the moment, and was taking full advantage of the ability. “I was humming and the Baron says I’m a Heterodyne and Doctor Beetle was hiding a hive engine and there are jägers following me and you look like Punch and Judy and Uncle Barry and my locket looks like Bill and Lucrezia and it was stolen and _why didn’t you tell me_? For all these years I could have known I— _ow_! Oh no, ow ow ow….”

Her rant trailed off as she clutched at her head, which was sufficient motivation for a handful of jägers to leap in, carefully prying Agatha out of Punch’s arms until one of them could pick her up, cradling her and backing away to the side of the room. She clung to him, crying. Klaus couldn’t tell if she was aware of who she was clinging to. Punch looked thoroughly unhappy and mistrustful, but didn’t fight them over it; instead he glared and reached for a pile of rivets when Gilgamesh took a step in Agatha’s direction.

Klaus hadn’t been expecting any of this, but that gesture was worse. He grabbed Gilgamesh’s arm and pulled him back to his side and behind him, frowning. Gilgamesh stumbled and glared at him. He kept his eyes on Punch. “What—”

“Adam? Agatha? What’s—oh.” Klaus looked away from Punch, and yes, that was Judy standing in the doorway. “Oh no. Klaus—” She broke off.

“Judy.” She didn’t have amnesia. Neither of them did; they knew who he was. They knew who _Agatha_ was, almost certainly, and they’d been hiding her. Judy looked surprised and afraid, darting looks between Klaus, Punch, and Agatha with her cluster of jägers; now that he looked for it Klaus could see the fear in Punch’s expression as well. “What’s going _on_?”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Agatha wailed, still clinging to—oh, that was Jorgi that had picked her up. Good; he was generally more willing to recognize when it was best to run from a situation than most jägers. Klaus hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but was reassured anyway.

“Klaus, she doesn’t know anything!” Judy said. She moved into the room, straightening up like she was getting ready for a fight. Punch scooped rivets off of a nearby table, and both of them started to move toward a spot between Klaus and Agatha.

Klaus would much prefer to get ahold of the girl; it seemed like they wouldn’t run without her. But neither Agatha nor the jägers would like that, so he stayed still. “That much is _obvious_. What I want to know is _why_.”

“She’s innocent, Klaus, she knows nothing, please just leave her alone—”

“ _Alone_?” What was Judy thinking? “You expect me to leave a _Heterodyne girl_ to run around Europa _alone_? She’ll be prey for every power on the planet, and all of Mechanicsburg can’t keep her safe with the Castle damaged the way it is! Did you think you could _hide_ her?”

“We’ve done quite well at that until now, yes,” Judy said tartly. But for some reason she seemed to have relaxed slightly. Perhaps because Punch had reached her, and they only had to go around a table to be directly between Klaus and Agatha.

“ _ **Enough!**_ ” Agatha roared, voice full of spark command, and the room was quiet.

Agatha was standing, her hands clenched into shaking fists at her sides, tear tracks still covering her face, but straight and angry, with thirteen jägers ranged beside and behind her. Half of them looked openly proud; the other half would have had better luck looking serious and intimidating if they hadn’t been so obviously proud as well. Not that thirteen gleeful jägers was precisely a reassuring sight, either.

Agatha took a deep, deliberate breath, and then continued with forced calm and only slightly less spark. “We are going to go inside, and have tea, and _everyone_ is going to explain _everything_. To me.” She turned on her heel without waiting for a response and marched through the door Judy had come out of, trailed by still-grinning jägers.

It was a remarkable transformation, and made Klaus wonder if Beetle hadn’t been dabbling in some minor mind control technologies to keep her hidden. But he would investigate that later. For now he gestured politely for Punch and Judy to proceed. “I certainly have no objections to that plan.”

Judy frowned at him; Punch only stared at Klaus calmly, but that usually meant about the same thing. They were still analyzing him as a threat, for some reason Klaus didn’t know and couldn’t guess, but he had at least stopped being such an immediate threat that they felt the need to fight now. He wasn’t certain whether that was due to Agatha’s declaration or not, but he was grateful to the girl anyway.

After a moment Adam nodded, and the couple turned to follow Agatha into their house. Klaus waited for them to reach the door before letting go of Gilgamesh. He _could_ send Gilgamesh away, it would be safer—

“I’m not _leaving_ now,” Gilgamesh said, almost complaining.

Klaus sighed. “It would be safer.”

“They only paid attention to _me_ when I might’ve gotten near Miss Heterodyne.” He folded his arms. “I’ll just stay away from her. It’s you that they don’t trust.”

Klaus winced internally. Gilgamesh was right, though he still couldn’t fathom why. “You will leave however you have to as soon as there are signs of hostility.” Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow, and Klaus ignored it. The boy could amend it to additional hostility well enough on his own. “In the meantime, observe. I want to hear your thoughts on this later.”

“Yes, Father,” Gilgamesh said. It might have sounded more obedient without context, or the hint of excitement he couldn’t seem to get entirely off his face.

Klaus glanced around; there were no weapons in the workshop. There were plenty of parts, he could certainly make one without much time, but—no. That would only make a fight more likely. He sighed, and led Gilgamesh into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that the typical formal/standard/for-show number of jägers in a Heterodyne guard (at least when in what they consider hostile areas... so anywhere that isn't Mechanicsburg) is thirteen. This is partly to play on peoples' superstition; thirteen jägers is extra scary, because thirteen is bad luck. From the Mechanicsburg point of view, however, it's actually a group of fourteen, so two times (lucky) seven. (With the Heterodyne both symbolically changing the number from unlucky to lucky, and realistically being able to tell the jägers to not kill/destroy things... though admittedly many don't actually bother to tell the jägers no, the jägers will still be pretty restrained by the need to stick close.)
> 
> On the other hand, if you kill one of that group, then it's back to thirteen and you are in for some _very_ bad luck, usually in the form of a vengeful rampage. So Heterodynes outside of Mechanicsburg (assuming there aren't other, practical considerations) tend to be frequently accompanied by groups of thirteen jägers, for prettymuch the sole purpose of messing with superstitious people.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus, Adam and Lilith explain things to Agatha and each other. Or they start to, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... not fluffy. There really wasn't a way to make it fluffy without dragging everyone terribly out of character, so it is not. But it improves by the end! I am afraid plot has gone and infected this series so we may not ever quite get back to Heterodyne levels of fluff, but it is basically a everything-goes-well-for-everyone AU so it won't ever get _that_ bad.
> 
> [Radovana](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/10892501) [Nikolayev](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/12011681) belongs to [adiduck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck), who very kindly let me borrow her when I showed up asking for a jäger at two AM. (Also: it turns out some jägers think her name is Sarge. There is no possible way I could resist playing with that.)

Judy’s kitchen table was large enough for everyone to sit, although Klaus didn’t think anyone was happy with the order. Judy had steered Agatha to one end of the table before she took over making tea (Agatha’s hands had been shaking as she tried), and the seats nearest her on either side were, respectively, claimed by Punch and a startled-looking jäger that Judy seemed to have chosen at random to shove into it. Klaus put Gil at the other end (and he didn’t argue, thank all the gods), which left Klaus sitting next to the jäger. Jorgi was leaning on the back of Agatha’s chair, just in case anyone present might have missed the jägers’ protectiveness until then. Agatha had glanced up at him briefly, then gone back to staring at the table, head cradled in her hands and hair hiding her face. The other jägers placed themselves around the room, making it feel much too small, though they left space for Judy to work.

Klaus’s tea, when Judy set it in front of him, had sugar. He’d gotten out of the habit of drinking it that way early in the Empire, but had been very averse to most teas without sugar before Lucrezia sent him to Skifander. He wasn’t sure what it meant that Judy remembered. She asked what Gil wanted (also sugar, as it turned out; that explained a bit about Zoing), and one of the jägers; the rest cheerfully informed her once they realized they were getting tea too.

The kitchen was otherwise quiet, as if the tension prevented anyone from speaking. Klaus glanced between Gil (watching Agatha), Agatha (still hidden behind her hair), Judy (tense shoulders, quick movements, had set a knife on the counter that couldn’t possibly have any use in making tea), and Punch (openly watching Klaus). The jägers had all adopted pointedly casual poses, but their eyes were darting from Agatha around the kitchen and back again, and hands kept coming to rest on hilts or near hidden weapons. By the time Judy sat down almost all the jägers had their arms deliberately folded.

There was another moment of silence before Agatha raised her head, face unreadable. She raked her hands through her hair before sitting back in her chair like she needed the support to stay upright. (Jorgi stood up so his arms weren’t in the way.) Then she seemed to notice the tea, and leaned forward again to get it.

She drank half the tea before setting it down again and taking a breath like she was preparing to go into battle, then blinked in surprise at the jäger seated at the table before focusing on Judy. “I… you’re Judy.” Her eyes slid over to Punch. “And Punch.”

Punch nodded; Judy’s eyes flicked to Klaus as she frowned, then nodded as well. “We didn’t like the attention. We moved here to get away from it before your uncle found us.”

“Uncle Barry,” Agatha said, her voice caught between angry and hurt. Her hands tightened on her teacup.

Klaus, carefully, set his down. Barry—he must have missed that, she’d said it earlier hadn’t she—if Barry was her uncle, then—

“Yes.” Judy was watching Agatha now, face calm. “You were in danger—no young spark survives without powerful protection—”

“You—we don’t even know if I’ll be a spark _now_! How could you know I would be _then_?”

“Agatha—” Judy looked torn, eyes darting over to Klaus again. She sighed. “You started heterodyning when you were five. You are a spark. The only reason it hasn’t been obvious is because your locket suppresses—” Her eyes dropped slightly, and then widened. “Agatha, your locket!”

“It was stolen,” Agatha said flatly. “This morning. Which is a _good thing_ , since apparently if it hadn’t been I would have _never known who I was_ —” She broke off, taking another deep breath as Judy looked stricken and Punch nervous. “What did it suppress?”

“Your spark.” Judy sighed. “Master Barry never explained how it worked—we wouldn’t have understood—but it was meant to suppress your spark so no one would recognize you so you wouldn’t be in danger.”

“But Doctor Beetle—Doctor Beetle _liked_ me, he would have kept me safe. And—” Agatha’s voice broke. It was hard to tell if she was starting to cry again when her face was already covered in half-dry tears, but Klaus thought so. “Uncle Barry was—he’s _Barry Heterodyne_ , he’s a legend, if he’d wanted to protect me—” She broke off, dragging the back of a fist over her eyes.

“Agatha—” Judy started, and broke off. She looked distressed and unsure; Klaus supposed there was no way she could have planned for this, and Judy had always done better planning for things, adapting had been more of Barry’s area. Punch rested a hand on Agatha’s shoulder, and she looked over at him before her eyes dropped back to the table.

“Doctor Beetle is a great scientific mind,” Klaus said. Everyone’s eyes landed on him; he ignored the suspicion in Judy’s and Punch’s. “A great teacher, and a good administrator. But he was never more than average as a spark. It helped him in teaching, it kept him closer to what his students could do, but he never would have ruled a city if he hadn’t inherited it, and he couldn’t have defended it against a very determined or powerful enemy. His battle clanks were the best in their day, but he was never as good at any other aspect of protecting a town.”

“And your uncle—things were never as easy for him and Master Bill as people think they were,” Judy said. “A lot of it was luck, and a lot of it was having each other and their friends with them to help.” She was focused on Agatha; Klaus tried to guess whether it meant anything that she hadn’t looked at him, or that she was following his lead in what to say. “By himself, keeping you hidden was the only way Master Barry _could_ protect you.”

Agatha stared at the table, hands still tight around the teacup. “I—okay. I’ll… believe you. But why didn’t you tell _me_?”

“You were a child—” Judy stopped at Agatha’s glare, and sighed. “But you aren’t now. We… didn’t think to change what we were doing, I suppose. Your uncle left orders that worked at the time, and it didn’t occur to us that we should… change them on our own.” Her eyes flicked toward Punch before landing back on Agatha. “We’re sorry for that.” Punch nodded.

Agatha stared back, then sighed. She leaned her elbows on the table like she needed the support, and looked at Klaus. “Why didn’t he go to you?”

Klaus really did try to keep the hurt out of his voice. He didn’t entirely succeed. “I wish I knew. I would have helped.”

Gilgamesh turned and stared at Klaus. Klaus looked back, but couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. “Yes, Gilgamesh?”

“You hid _me_.”

“If anyone had known you were my son you would have been the target of every assassin in—”

…Oh. Well, it wasn't really the same thing, but….

Now the entire table was staring at Klaus. The jäger looked amused. “I _did_ tell you.”

“Only after I broke into the records vault—” The way Gilgamesh’s sentence broke off was just as telling as the careful neutrality of his face. Klaus hadn’t known he was upset by that. At the time, certainly, but by now….

Well obviously he was. “I had planned to tell you when you were ten. If Barry had been there—” If Bill and Barry had been there, maybe he wouldn’t have had to conquer an empire. Maybe he would have, but they could have designed defenses he could trust to keep Gil safe, and he wouldn’t have had to run a school full of kidnapped enemy children (though there had been remarkably few incidents, with the one notable exception). Maybe— “It would have been easier. I wish I knew why he didn’t.” He tried not to let any feelings into his voice or his face as he looked at Judy; he wasn’t even sure what he was hiding. Hope that Judy would know; fear of what she might say.

Judy frowned, looking from him to Agatha and back. She looked reluctant. “You were conquering an empire, Klaus.”

“And that was _enough_?” He’d never even—if Klaus had come back to the Heterodyne Boys conquering Europa for no apparent reason he would have gone in and knocked sense into them. Barry apparently had thought he saw that and done—nothing to Klaus. Hidden his niece, hidden his friends, and vanished. Hidden himself, Klaus hoped, as much as it hurt, as strange as it would be to hide himself from his family and friends. “He never did anything—if he’d come to me with another plan I at least would have _listened_.”

He wanted to keep talking, he _really_ wanted to stop so he wouldn’t reveal more, it was difficult to stop but he had run out of words other than _why?_ and he’d already said that.

Judy was frowning, looking at Punch; he was looking back, gesturing. Klaus half-recognized the signs; some were new, some seemed modified; a few he’d forgotten. His mind was too full of _why_ and _what was Barry thinking_ and _where was Bill, what happened, did he—_ to piece together what he could recognize.

Judy sighed and turned to Klaus, pulling her shoulders back and raising her chin. Klaus didn’t think it was conscious. “Barry… had seen evidence that you were working for…” her eyes flicked to Agatha, “for the Other.”

Klaus felt more stunned than hurt, somehow. It was gratifying to see similar shock on every face that wasn’t Punch’s or Judy’s. “I’m _not_. And—when was this?”

Judy frowned. “Before he found us. About fifteen years ago, within a few….”

Klaus thought, then shook his head. “I can’t think what I would have been doing then that could have seemed like it was connected to the Other. Studying her technology, but I didn’t start that until later—”

Judy and Punch were both frowning. “Her?”

It was Klaus’s turn to glance at Agatha. “I… have suspicions about who the Other might have been, based on similarities in the style of the work.”

“Who was she?” Agatha asked, tone curious. There was some caution, as any mention of the Other deserved, but—

Klaus sighed, and ran a hand over his eyes. It was only a suspicion, and—and it was a very _strong_ suspicion, but Agatha had enough to deal with right now. “We’re getting off topic—”

Agatha slammed a hand on the table. Every teacup on the table jumped, and Agatha shot Judy a guilty look before glaring at Klaus. “ _No_. I said that _everyone_ is explaining _everything_ to me. Now!”

“You have my word that I will tell you, but right now there are enough problems—”

“The Other was Lucrezia,” Judy said, her voice bleak. “She intended to become immortal by transferring her mind into and taking over the bodies of a line of daughters and granddaughters.”

“…Oh.” Agatha slowly withdrew her hand from the table, her expression close to heartbreak. “So—my mother—I—”

“You were in danger,” Judy said.

The bleak shock seemed to be limited to the humans; the jägers were tense, growling and glaring (in every direction but Agatha’s). “She iz dead?” Jorgi asked.

“Barry had to leave too quickly to be sure, but her body probably is,” Judy said. “She would have done something since then if she wasn’t. But the copy of her mind she intended to transfer may have already existed. We don’t know.” The jägers’ growls only increased.

“I.” Agatha stopped and swallowed, staring down at the table. She didn’t continue.

“Punch. Judy.” Klaus’s voice was tight. He wasn’t growling like the jägers, but he _wanted_ to. “I don’t know what would have made Barry believe I was working for _her_. Unless he told you what he saw—” Punch shook his head. “Then I cannot argue against it, but I assure you I was not and I never _will_. I am going to _find out what happened_ , and if there is any trace of her left, I am going to _**destroy it**_.” He was getting close to ranting. Klaus took a breath before continuing. “I would like your help, if you’re willing.”

Punch and Judy exchanged a glance, and nodded in unison. “We are,” Judy said.

(Maybe later Klaus would feel a hint of gratitude toward Lucrezia for restoring Punch and Judy’s trust in him. Much later. Right now he wanted to strangle her with his bare hands.)

“Und oz,” a jäger growled; more order than reminder.

“Of course,” Klaus said.

Agatha let out a small giggle.

Klaus turned to look at her, worried; she was definitely starting to cry again now, and as he looked she buried her face in her arms on the table. “Miss Heterodyne….” She giggled again, and it turned into crying, her breath catching on quiet sobs.

“Agatha…” Judy started, with no better an idea what to say than Klaus had, it seemed.

Jorgi leaned forward over the back of Agatha’s chair, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Iz hokay, Miz Agatha. Hyu haff os now, yah? Ve meke sure she ken’t do ennyting to hyu.”

Agatha sniffed loudly. Klaus thought that movement was probably a nod. (He wondered how he’d just lost a contest of emotional sensitivity to a jäger.)

It took another second, but Agatha sat up, trying to wipe the tears off of her face with her hands. Judy got up to hand her a handkerchief, and then prevent her from using it by hugging her, leaning in to whisper something Klaus couldn’t hear, but it made the corners of her mouth quirk up in what probably would have become a smile under other circumstances.

Once Judy let go Agatha managed to dry her face off, and stand up. She turned to Jorgi first, offering a shaky “thank you.”

He smiled at her with surprisingly few teeth. “Hyu iz velcome, Miz Agatha.”

She smiled back, then took another deep breath as she turned back toward the table, eyes moving from Judy to Punch to Klaus. “So you’re all getting along now?”

Klaus caught Judy’s eye. “I believe so.”

“We still need to talk through some things, but yes,” Judy said.

“Okay. Good.” Agatha’s eyes stayed on Klaus this time. “And you’re not going to—to vanish off somewhere, right? Or you’ll come back?”

“…I do have an empire to run, but yes, if I must leave I will come back.”

“Okay.” Agatha leaned against the table; it looked like she needed the support. “I think I need to sleep.”

“It’s barely past noon, dear,” Judy said gently.

“It is?” Agatha looked startled for an instant before she went back to looking tired. “Well, I need a nap then, I just—I’m really tired right now.”

Punch nodded; Judy watched Agatha for a moment before nodding as well. “Yes, I suppose you would be. Go ahead then, dear, we’ll talk while you nap.”

As much as Klaus looked forward to being _able_ to talk to Punch and Judy again, he wasn’t sure he was looking forward to that conversation. Still, it needed to happen. “If I must leave—which I do not expect—the jägers will be able to find me for you.”

“Oh.” Agatha blinked, and received nods from most of the jägers. “Oh. Well, thank you. All. I’ll go now….”

Agatha moved toward a door, which turned out to have a narrow staircase behind it, but turned once she reached the second step. Whatever she’d been intending to say, she froze and stared at the jägers that had started moving toward the door as well. “Er… you’re following me?”

“Ov cawse.” Jorgi looked just as confused and almost as taken aback as Agatha did.

“But… I’m sleeping.”

Jorgi stared for another second, then relaxed. “ _Ho_. Dot’s eet, hokay. Ve ken schtay outside de door, eksept Rada, dot iz fine.”

(“Who de hell iz Rada,” Klaus could barely hear a jäger mutter.)

(“Schot op!” another hissed, slightly louder, and with a distinctly alarmed tone. “Iz Sarge!”)

“Er….” Agatha didn’t seem to see how this was a solution, until one of the jägers moved closer. Pink skin, and glowing dimly pink; Klaus wondered if that was coincidence or if the color of her skin controlled the color of the glow—the jägers wouldn’t appreciate him asking. Shorter than most of the other jägers that had switched into the unit, brown hair in a bun, looked relatively tame compared to most of the other jägers present; probably meant she was more vicious than all of them. Interesting that one female jäger had switched into the unit that had contained one to start with; Klaus wondered if that was coincidence.

She gave Agatha a quick, short bow, then grinned at the rest of the jägers present with a distinct edge of threat. Her teeth were thinner and more numerous than Klaus thought was typical for jägers—a bit of an achievement, really—but looked just as sharp. “Hyu dun need to vorry about dese leedle boyz, Meestress, iffen dey iz schtupid enuff to try schneakink into hyu room vhile hyu iz ascleep, Hy _teach dem a lesson_ for hyu, jah?” Either the words or the grin were enough to make a few of the other jägers actually cringe.

Klaus made a note to ask Boris for any files they had on jägers named Rada. It was purely curiosity at this point, of course, but there was no harm in learning what he could about a jäger that could scare even other jägers.

“Er….” Agatha still looked confused. “Thank you?”

“Hyu iz velcome,” Rada said, sounding just a bit smug.

Jorgi was not among the jägers cringing. Or if he was, he managed to hide it. “Iancu, Bogdan, Marcu, hyu follow. Efferyvun else, roof. Er—” He stopped, and looked at Judy. “If eet ken hold os?”

Judy was smiling, amused. “We built the roof sturdy. You’ll be fine.”

“Hokay den, roof,” Jorgi said, and most of the jägers filed out of the kitchen as Klaus wondered what exactly Punch and Judy—being constructs made by Heterodynes and from Mechanicsburg—considered sturdy. Certainly most people wouldn't have invited nine jägers onto their roof.

Agatha stared after them, turning back to the four jägers still in the kitchen only after the rest had vanished. She seemed to have used up all her decisiveness for the day. “Um….”

“Hyu iz tired?” one of the three jägers Jorgi had picked to stay asked. Agatha nodded and he continued. “Hyu schleep, den. Ve meke shure nottink heppens, und vhen hyu vake op, den hyu ken schtart fixing tings.”

Agatha blinked at him, then nodded and turned back up the stairs. “Yeah, that’s… good idea. Good… er, afternoon, Adam, Lilith,” she added, slightly louder.

“I’ll call you in a few hours if you’re not up yet,” Judy said.

The three male jägers pointedly waited for Rada to follow Agatha first. Klaus half expected (and slightly dreaded) Judy to turn to him once Agatha had vanished up the stairs. Instead she turned to Gilgamesh, her expression openly curious. “So you’re Klaus’s son?”

“Er.” Gilgamesh looked startled by the sudden focus. “Um. Yes? I am.”

“Hm,” Judy said. She watched him for another moment (Gilgamesh shifted awkwardly in his seat) before smiling. “Has your father ever told you about the time he tried to convince Bill and Barry to build a bridge out of waffles?”

“…No,” Gilgamesh said, sounding intrigued.

Klaus groaned. “Waffle _patterns_.” Not that that helped much; he’d been awake (unknown to any of his companions) for four days then, not yet known Skifandran mental exercises, and been thoroughly incoherent even before he’d started sparking and gone into a fugue. The resulting conversations and inventions had been used against him ever since.

“Ah, yes. Waffle patterns,” Judy said, her face perfectly straight and tone clearly humoring Klaus.

(He kind of missed it.)

“They had triangles,” Klaus said.

“They were _waffles_ ,” Judy said.

(He kind of missed it so much it hurt.)

“Waffles are a perfectly valid source of inspiration.”

Judy ignored him, leaning toward Gilgamesh, the corners of her mouth curling in a way that meant she was hiding a grin. “We were on the way back from another adventure, and stopped in this small town—I’m not sure it even had a name—in a swamp….”

(He had it _back_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's wondering, the reason Adam and Lilith decide to (more or less) trust Klaus again so quickly is a little bit that he seems to have been honest with Agatha, told the jägers who she was and followed her home (as opposed to just kidnapping her without saying anything), but mostly because I figure it's probably pretty hard to fake sudden protectively vengeful spark _**destroy her**_ fugues, which is what Klaus goes into after hearing about Lucrezia's plan. (Briefly! And he's much more controlled about it than most sparks! ...But he's still planning thorough and destructive vengeance.)
> 
> Judy's also deliberately needling him a little bit with the waffle story for Gilgamesh, seeing how he reacts to being embarrassed now, etc. (Answer: exactly like he used to, because Klaus is _really desperate_ to feel like they're all friends again even if it embarrasses him in front of his son and, after a few hours of gossip, the entire jäger army.)
> 
> And the reason Klaus thinks "thank all the gods" instead of just "thank god" is Skifander; I'm reading Zeetha specifying that Skifander's goddess is a fertility goddess as indicating that they at least _believe_ in multiple gods, even if they primarily or exclusively worship the one. So I'm figuring Klaus picked up the 'multiple gods' thinking, and hasn't really gotten out of the habit, because how many people do you think are having extensive theological conversations with him since he started conquering an Empire?


End file.
